Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

There are at least two good reasons to write about golf courses in Scotland:

• Golf in the “home of golf” is so much fun that it is good to be able to write about it again.

• Doing so means that I can forget about one Donald Trump who thinks he should be president again, but should get nowhere near the Oval Office.

Links Magazine performed a service this week by writing about the “best modern golf courses in Scotland” – and the good news for me is that I have played two of them.

So, with credit to the Links writer, David DeSmith, I start this blog with a description of these two.

• Castle Stuart Golf Links (Inverness)

“Golf course architect Mark Parsinen was at it again near Inverness, on the shore of the Moray Firth, this time co-designing what was envisioned to be another destination course with another architect, Gil Hanse.  

“And a destination, it is.  Now a member of the Cabot family of golf properties, Castle Stuart Golf Links at Cabot Highlands gives today’s players everything they could want from a modern links:  Room off the tee; challenging approach shots to imaginative, well-guarded greens; excellent playing conditions; and views of the sea (and the eponymous castle itself) that will forever be etched in your memory.”

I played this course on one of our trips to Scotland and, in only one turn around 18-holes, loved it.  The links-style character of the course tests all shots, even as you look out at the Firth of Fourth. 

As usual in Scotland’s links-style layouts, you often play a lot of shots close to the ground so they run out.  Which is why one of the favorite clubs in my golf bag is my 7-iron.

• Machrihanish Dunes (Campbeltown)

“Architect David McLay Kidd’s design – he did it in 2008 — at the tip of the Mull of Kintyre is a throwback to an age when courses were not so much created as discovered, just as next-door neighbor Machrihanish Golf Club was by Old Tom Morris.

“At Mach Dunes, environmental restrictions meant that Kidd could identify tees and green sites and shape them a bit, but very little was done elsewhere.  The land on which the course sits today has shorter grass than when Kidd arrived, and some wildly entertaining greens, but otherwise it’s much as he found it — something that has earned it the label of “the world’s most natural golf course.”  There are blind shots, big dunes, forced carries, and an occasional long walk from green to tee.

“But the overall experience is a wholly exhilarating one, and one that will give you a good idea of what it was like to play golf in Scotland back in Old Tom’s day.”

When I played Mach Dunes, I also had played its more famous neighbor Machrihanish Golf Club.  So, I had the full Mach experience.

Kidd’s course was fun to walk, as I did with my wife, Nancy.  Blind shots?  Yes.  But, still, a very fun day on the links.

Including these two, here is how golf writer DeSmith started his Links Magazine story:

“As the acknowledged ‘Home of Golf,’ Scotland has a long and proud history with the game, and especially in regard to the courses on which the game is played.  The Old Course in St. Andrews is the most famous course in the world, in part because of its age and history.  Old, it most certainly is.

“The same can be said for many of Scotland’s other most-revered courses, including its other Open rota sites at Carnoustie, Royal Troon, and Muirfield.  These famed courses date back more than 100 years, and in that time, they’ve earned praise from all comers.

“But Scotland hasn’t been resting on its laurels.  Over the past three decades, it has seen more than a dozen spectacular new courses debut — courses that vie with the country’s best and attract visiting golfers like thirsty men to whisky.”

DeSmith adds that “attributes that constitute a ‘modern’ course in Scotland are a bit different from the ones that might characterize such a design in America or other parts of the world — largely because so many of them are links courses that honor and include traditional links features.

Here, for the record, is a list of the other “modern Scottish courses” that met the Links Magazine writer’s test:

• Loch Lomond Golf Club (Argyll & Bute)

• Kingsbarns Golf Links (St. Andrews)

• Dundonald Links (Irvine)

• The Renaissance Club (North Berwick)

• The Castle Course (St. Andrews)

• Trump International Golf Links (Aberdeen)

• Ardfin (Isle of Jura)

• Dumbarnie Links (Leven)

So, golf in Scotland?  A great experience, though getting back to Trump for a moment, I would decline to play Trump International in Aberdeen, Scotland.  There are far better courses there than to align with Trump.

With wife Nancy, I have had the pleasure to travel to Scotland – her parent’s homeland — five times. Each trip, with modern and old courses alike, was great fun.  And, not just fun.  But a distinct pleasure to relive golf in the “home of golf.”

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The Department of Inquiring Minds Want to Know is one of five departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

The others are the Department of Pet Peeves, the Department of “Just Saying,” the Department of Words Matter, and the Department of Good Quotes Worth Remembering.

So, inquiring minds want to know:

1. DO PURCHASES BY CREDIT CARD REQUIRE SIGNATURES?  The Wall Street Journal says no.

So, why do we still sign?  The answer is that signatures have been customary for many years, though, in fact, under law and management processes, they have been optional since 2018.

The Journal reports that Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express dropped the requirement to sign for charges like restaurant checks in 2018.

They don’t look at our scribbles to verify identity or stop fraud.  Taps, clicks and electronic signatures took over the heavy lifting for many everyday purchases — and for many contracts, loan applications and even Social Security forms.

The John Hancock was written off as a relic useful mainly to inflate the value of sports memorabilia.

• WHY DO BIG TRUCKS OFTEN PARK OUTSIDE REST AREAS ON MAJOR HIGHWAYS, EITHER AT THE ENTRANCES OR EXITS TO THOSE AREAS?  Here is what Mr. Google says.

“Big trucks often park at the entrances or exits of roadside rest areas because there is often a shortage of available parking spaces within the rest area itself, forcing drivers to park on the ramps when they can’t find a spot to rest inside; this is primarily due to the high demand for truck parking compared to the limited capacity at most rest stops.”

I beg to differ, at least on occasion.  I have seen rest areas open for more trucks, with some still sitting at the entrances or exits.

Oh well.

•  WHAT IS “OLD GROWTH” TIMBER?  I found out the answer last week.

And, to state the obvious, I am not someone who worked in forests all his life, but I thought I knew what the term “old growth” meant.  Just old trees.

No.  I found again that I am not as smart as I thought I was.

The issue came up because a few of us at Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club, where I play most of my golf in Salem, Oregon, were asked to help with a club project.  It was to spread wood chips on a walking path toward a stand of old growth timber.

A retired forester friend of mine – we were together on the path project – said the definition of “old growth” refers to trees that are at least 200 years old.  The ones at Illahe are “only” about 150 years old.

There.  Aren’t you glad you know more about this than you did before I wrote this blog?

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols – I know I quote him a lot but that’s because he’s so quotable – performed a valuable service a day or so agpo when all he did was quote Donald Trump.

Thus, my blog headline.

This was Nichols’ introduction:

“Trump, of course, tops the leaderboard for gobsmacking moments, and this week, his comments ran the gamut from vile to hilarious to head-scratching.  Even so, nothing could match his description of the January 6 insurrection — one of the darkest moments in American political history—as ‘a day of love.’

“This vertigo-inducing moment occurred during Trump’s Univision town hall two nights ago.  A Cuban American construction worker named Ramiro González said that he was ‘disturbed’ by Trump’s behavior on January 6, but wanted to give Trump a chance to win back his vote.

Trump’s answer was a slurry of sentence fragments and passive constructions, but its mendacity was unmistakable.

From Nichols, this quote from Trump: 

“Some of those people went down to the Capitol, I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action.  Ashli Babbitt was killed.  Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there.  We didn’t have guns.  The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns.

“And when I say ‘we,’ these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows.”

There.  That’s Trump.

In general about Trump, Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin quoted Kamala Harris:

“His staff won’t let him do a ‘60 Minutes’ interview.  Everyone has done it except Donald Trump.  He will not debate me again.  I put out my medical records.  He won’t put out his medical records.  

“And you have to ask:  Why is his staff doing that?  And it may be because they think he’s just not ready — and unfit and unstable and should not have that level of transparency for the American people.”

Rubin reports that Harris hit the same notes in a series of battleground rallies describing Trump as “unstable and unhinged.”  And at a rally, Harris even played clips of Trump labeling his political opponents as “the enemies from within … those people are more dangerous than Russia and China.”

More from Rubin:

“Trump, as even mainstream outlets acknowledge, is becoming angrier, more threatening, more explicit in his authoritarian vision — and more incoherent.  The uptick in unsteady, off-kilter performances has increased.  On Monday, he seemed to prove Harris’s point at a bizarre town hall at which he cut off questions and swayed to the music for nearly 40 minutes.  On Tuesday, he rambled, insulted the interviewer and American autoworkers, and then veered wildly off topic when asked a basic question about his economic plan.”

So, there is no way for any sane person to understand Trump, the incoherent one. 

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

A few columns in major national newspapers recently have followed a question-answer format to help readers understand more about politics as the national presidential election heads into its final weeks.

I use that approach today, though, in fact, I both ask the questions and provide the answers.

QUESTION:  What ought to mark presidential candidates?

ANSWER:  Solid character based on years of experience handling tough public policy issues.  Plus, rigorous adherence to the truth.

QUESTION:  What qualities do you value in a presidential candidate?

ANSWER:  Candidates who appear as they are without crafting an image that displays them as what they are not.  Call this a “what you see is what you get” ethic.

QUESTION:  Name another particular credential you value in a candidate.

ANSWER:  The ability to admit an error if a candidate has made one, correct that error, and then move on without being called a flip-flopper – unless, of course, that is what a candidate is doing…just responding to political winds.

QUESTION:  Name another value.

ANSWER:  The willingness to accept the outcome at the polls without instituting a riot to overcome the outcome.

As for Trump, if he loses the election, he says he intends to use U.S. troops – yes, American military troops — to go after what he calls “radical-left lunatics.”  Who knows what he means by that term?  Perhaps just those who oppose him.

QUESTION:  What is really at stake in this election?

ANSWER:  The future of America as we know it.

Consider this from writer Peter Wehner in The Atlantic:

‘The nominee for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, is a squalid figure, and the squalor is not subtle.  His vileness, his lawlessness, and his malevolence are undisguised.  At this point, it is reasonable to conclude that those qualities are a central part of Trump’s appeal to many of the roughly 75 million people who will vote for him in three weeks.

“They revel in his vices; they are vivified by them.  Folie à millions.

“Trump may lose the election, and, by that loss, America may escape the horrifying fate of another term.  But we have to acknowledge this, too:  The man whom the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called ‘fascist to the core’ and ‘the most dangerous person to this country’ is in a razor-thin contest against Kamala Harris, a woman who, whether you agree with her or not, is well within the normal boundaries of American politics.

“If he loses, he will not concede. Trump will instead attempt to tear the country apart.  He can count on the near-total support of his party, and the majority of the white evangelical world.  They will once again rally to his side, in the name of Jesus.”

To which, in regard to the last phrase, I say “balderdash.”  Trump does not deserve to be listed in the same sentence with Jesus.

Or, this from Washington Post writer Dana Milbank that summarizes Trump derangement:

“Under the stress of the final weeks of the campaign, Trump has somehow become ever more bonkers than he already was.  Over the past week, he proposed using the National Guard or the military against ‘radical left lunatics’ on Election Day, and he called the United States an ‘occupied country.’

“He stood onstage at what was supposed to be a ‘town hall meeting’ and swayed and danced to his campaign playlist for 39 minutes.  He bickered with an interviewer at the Economic Club of Chicago and slurred words at a rally in Georgia.  He threatened to impose 2,000 per cent tariffs on cars.

“He called his opponents the ‘enemy from within’ and made up stories about migrant gangs taking over buildings in Colorado.  He held a Fox News event with women and proclaimed himself ‘the father of IVF,’ then acknowledged he asked a female Republican senator to ‘explain IVF’ to him.

QUESTION:  What have you had enough of in this election?

ANSWER:  Donald Trump.

I have had more than enough – read, too much – of Trump as he preens to become president again.

I thought of this yesterday:

What if we had a presidential election that met this overall goal:  Talk truth, add context, and get a penalty for lying.

Imagine that.  We could vote on the basis of what we heard, without having to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Won’t happen.  No, it won’t because, unfortunately, many voters in this country want the negative, even the lies, which is why they hew toward Trump.

Don’t count me among them.  So call me poly-anna – or a supporter of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

The question in this blog headline crossed my mind the other day when I was walking around the golf course.

So, today, I posit the answer.

This:  Trump is an avowed fascist.

I wasn’t sure what fascism meant, though I knew that Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy before I was born, was one – a fascist.  So, I looked up the term.

Here is what it means:  Fascism is a far-right form of government in which most of the country’s power is held by one ruler or a small group, under a single party.  Fascist governments are usually totalitarian and authoritarian one-party states.

Trump wants to be THE LEADER in America. 

Not the president for all citizens.  But THE LEADER, more in the form of a dictator than a president.

And he has said that, if he wins election, he will set out to injure or kill those who oppose him, even if it means the U.S. military is directed to do his bidding pursuant to his role as commander in chief.

He wants everyone to do his bidding because, you know, he is always the smartest person in any room, facts to the contrary.

When General Mark Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he told New York Times reporter Bob Woodward:  “President Donald Trump is a danger to the nation.   We have got to stop him!

“He is the most dangerous person ever.  I had suspicions about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist.  He is the most dangerous person to this country.  A fascist to the core!”

For his part, Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols, who interviewed Miller, added this:

“I have long resisted the use of the word fascist to describe Trump.  But almost a year ago, I came to agree with Milley that Trump is through-and-through a fascist.  He is not only unhinged in his narcissistic self-obsessions, a problem which itself renders him unfit for office; he is also an aspiring dictator who demands that all political life centers on him.

“He identifies his fellow Americans as ‘enemies’ because they are of a different race, national origin, or political view.  And he has threatened to use the powerful machinery of the state and its military forces to inflict brutality on those fellow citizens.

“All of this raises the question, once again, of what it will take, what will be enough, to rouse the last undecided or less engaged American voters and bring them to the ballot box to defend their own freedoms.”

I wonder the same thing.

What will it take for Americans to avoid voting for a fascist – Trump?

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

1. A Global Golf Post writer, put it well this week when he referred to the meeting – an embrace — between PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and LIV Golf executive Yasir Al-Rumayyan in a European Tour pro-am event: 

“When two turkeys meet, you don’t get an eagle.”

I ask:  If there is so much to be gained, why have Monahan and Al Rumayyan cut a deal?  Perhaps there is not much to be gained.  Plus, they had to embrace.  Why not just shake hands and tend to business, whatever that is.

•  Or, this other day at the course where I play in Salem, Oregon, when the pro was getting a few of us older folks ready to tee off, he said this:

“Today, we will be playing preferred lies.”

Well, when I heard that, I thought presidential candidate Donald Trump would show up to continue spreading his “preferred lies.”

No.  Just us. 

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I draw this blog headline from a book review in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago that also included this subhead:

“In ‘Lucky Loser,’ the title of the new book, two investigative reporters illuminate the financial chicanery and media excesses that gave us the 45th president of the United States.”

The authors are Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig.

The story and the book say a lot about the man, Donald Trump, who thinks he should be president again.

The review was by Alexander Nazaryan, author of “The Best People: Trump’s Cabinet and the Siege on Washington.”  So, he knows what he is writing about as he reviews “Lucky Loser.”

At first, I toyed with reading the book, but then, upon reflection, decided I did not want to devote so much time to the scofflaw Trump.  Better just to read the review.

Here are a few excerpts from what the reviewer wrote, all of which redound to the debit of Trump.

• …I understood Donald Trump exactly as he demanded to be understood.  Erected on the ruins of the Art Deco Bonwit Teller department store, Trump Tower was as much a symbol as it was a building, a show of authority and strength as evident to a Soviet refugee as to a Staten Island native.

• Though it arrives on a crowded shelf, “Lucky Loser” is one of those rare Trump books that deserve, even demand, to be read.  In good part, that’s because it applies the proper lens through which to view Trump’s career.  In this telling, his story lies at the intersection of business and media, with politics arriving only as a secondary concern.

• By the early ’70s, Fred (Donald Trump’s father) had settled into tending the fortune he had created, while Donald, as the favorite son, played with his father’s money.  Bolstered by millions of dollars from Fred, Donald bought the decrepit Commodore Hotel on East 42nd Street in 1976, replacing it with the boxy, unimaginative Grand Hyatt.  It was his first building in Manhattan.

• Trump likes to rail against the lazy falsehoods of the “fake news media,” and he should know:  Reporters have been repeating his lies for decades.  In 1985, with little evidence, “60 Minutes” called him a billionaire.  Two years later, following the “Black Monday” stock market collapse, The Wall Street Journal’s Randall Smith, rushing toward a deadline, took Trump at his word when he claimed that he had liquidated his stock portfolio ahead of the crash.

• Trump may have turned out to be nothing more than another cautionary tale of 1980s hubris, had it not been for the television producer Mark Burnett, who in 2003 decided to make Trump the star of“The Apprentice,” his heavily scripted reality show.  The production team labored to disguise their star’s eternal confusion and incompetence.

“Our job then was to reverse-engineer the show and to make him not look like a complete moron,” one member of the production team told the  “Lucky Loser” authors.

• By the time “The Apprentice” had become a cash cow, the headlines about Trump’s failed marriages and casinos had long faded.  A new generation of Americans saw a ruthless executive, a steely-eyed (and alleged) billionaire who knew what it took to make it because he had supposedly made it himself.  Finally, under the glare of the presidency, the facade became too difficult to maintain.

• It’s almost quaint now to remember that Trump’s first months as a Republican primary contender in 2015 were so carnivalesque that his run seemed more like a marketing ruse than an earnest try for office.   At some point, though, as his poll numbers surged, it became clear that the image he had forged over the decades was not shattering despite contact with reality.

• Even as the mask of Trump the competent businessman fell, the same buck-passing and truth-evading that had inoculated him and the rest of his family from ever facing consequences continued to come in handy.

The author concludes:

“Washington was a mess in the wake of his presidency, but the Democrats were at fault, or maybe the Chinese.  Antifa.  Immigrants.  Ukraine.

Donald’s cannonball may have soaked us, but we must ask ourselves:  Why did we keep inviting him back to the pool?”

I concur.  Why? 

Trump’s financial shenanigans – as well as other crimes — should land him in prison, not the Oval Office.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Love your neighbor as yourself!

That’s an admonition from the Bible, which is worth nothing today.

So I do, with this introduction.

I am a member of what’s called a “Links Study Group” at Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club where I play in Salem, Oregon.

The group meets weekly to share perspectives about how we can live for God in our world.

Most of us in the group – which is open to anyone – play golf, which draws us together, thus the use of the word “links.”  Our group is patterned after Links Players International, a national non-profit headquartered in Palm Springs, California, that sets out to develop “fellowship” groups at golf clubs around the country.

The lesson this week was patterned after this Bible verse in Galatians 5:14:  “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command:  Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Just think about this admonition for a moment.  If all of us patterned our lives after those words – “love your neighbor as yourself” – the world would be a better place.

And, permit this political thought just for a moment.  We wouldn’t have to listen any more to notions from one Donald Trump that immigrants are enemies, worth deporting or even killing.  They are neighbors, so we should love them.

Here are more quotes from the Links lesson on loving your neighbor.

“Without a doubt, Arnold Palmer was one of the most beloved golfers of all time.  Of course, Arnie was a great golfer, with 62 PGA victories and seven majors.  But he was much more than that.

“Arnie transformed the game with his personality, charisma, and ‘go for broke’ style of golf.  He reached his peak just as television was there to capture it, captivating his fans.  The public adored him and showed up in droves to follow him around the course.  Arnie’s nickname may have been The King, but he was a man of the people, a hero for everyday folks who comprised ‘Arnie’s Army.’

“The fans loved Arnie because he loved them.  He bent over backward to please them, acknowledging their cheers with a big smile, giving them his famous ‘thumbs up’ gesture, and always signing autographs – very carefully so people would recognize his signature.

“When fans wrote to him requesting an autograph, Arnie always responded and paid the return postage himself.  The 2014 Golf Channel documentary on Arnie reported that his expenses for that act of kindness amounted to over $100,000 annually.  Men and women, young and old, Arnie showed kindness and compassion to all of them.  

“Two thousand years earlier, Jesus set the standard for kindness and compassion.  In particular, Jesus specialized in showing love to the last, the least, and the lost, which annoyed the Jewish leaders.

“Note these verses from Matthew 9:11-12: ‘When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’

“Jesus made a point to reach out to those that society rejected.  He met and healed the demon-possessed, touched those with leprosy, and allowed prostitutes to touch him.”

So, I say, follow both Arnie and Jesus, not to compare the two, but just to emphasize their “love your neighbor” ethic as worth emulating.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Atlantic Magazine writer Tom Nichols held forth a few days ago to contend that Donald Trump suffers when compared to America’s first president, George Washington.

Trump favors only himself.  Washington favored the country.

Yesterday, Nichols wrote a column summarizing his conclusions.  Here, I reprint what Nichols wrote.

“I’ve been thinking about George Washington.  Or, I should say, I had a discussion some time ago with The Atlantic’seditor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, about America’s first president, which began the process that resulted in my cover story for the November issue about how Donald Trump is the kind of demagogue that Washington warned us could one day gain the presidency, abuse its powers, and refuse to relinquish office. 

“Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged.  They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the ‘spirit of revenge’ that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics. 

“No man who has ever held the office is more unworthy of it than Trump — but he may hold it yet again.

“Initially, I didn’t want to write this article.  Perhaps like many other Americans, my understanding of Washington was limited to the things I’d learned in school a half century ago.  This is something of an irony, because I know a lot about Washington’s military campaigns:  I taught them as a professor at the Naval War College.  

“If you wanted an explanation of, say, the battle of Yorktown as an example of a joint and allied operation, I was your man.

“But Washington himself was, to me, something of a cipher.  (This is partly because I grew up in Massachusetts, where local revolutionaries such as John Adams were our heroes.)  And, so I studied him anew, including a visit to his home at Mount Vernon.

“As I stood in the rooms where he lived and died, I realized how human he was, with his own weaknesses and shortcomings, and how much he’d struggled with difficult decisions throughout his life while always trying to do right by his fellow citizens.  Even in his last hours, he thought of others, as he tried to reassure his grieving doctor that he was not afraid to die.

“Unlike Trump, who grasps for power to serve his own interests, Washington regarded his offices as authority entrusted to him by the American people.

“I know Atlantic readers value history and the guidance it can offer us in our daily lives as citizens.  I know, too, that these are stressful political times, when the American idea — the concepts of liberty for which Washington risked his life — are under siege.

“But I hope that you will find some inspiration, as I did, in remembering Washington, and that you can take heart from his example:  He showed us that true patriotism is not some heroic act, but a virtue we can express every day if we are guided by an innate sense of decency and a thoughtful love of country. 

“The votes cast in November will be more consequential than those in any other American election in more than a century.  As the United States confronts the choice between democracy and demagoguery, we should give thought to Washington’s example and the qualities that he possessed — ones we once expected, and should again demand, from our presidents.”

Well written, Tom Nichols.

Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Utah Senator Mitt Romney put it best yesterday when he said this:

“He just makes it up.  And he is able to spew enough disinformation that the Chinese must be smiling.”

Of course, Romney was talking about Donald Trump. 

And the farther we go along the presidential campaign trail the more difficult it is to believe anything Trump says – especially the lies that spew – yes, literally, spew — from his mouth all the time.

In the Washington Post, columnist Kathleen Parker put it this way:

“Lying, for Trump, is so reflexive that he needn’t bestir his fourth-grade vocabulary to seize headlines and malign those he finds inconvenient to his purposes.”

In general, Parker added this:

“…politicians every day try to score points with key constituencies:  Voters, party leaders, influencers and media figures.  A decision to lie is a simple math equation:  I am likely to score enough points with this lie that it will outweigh any consequences it might have from voters/donors/the media.

“Through numerous interviews with political pundits, pollsters, politicians and public figures, one author has learned that lies are mostly manufactured for a candidate’s base, whose members are willing to accept anything that affirms what they already believe.

“For the Republican base, which readily embraced Trump’s earlier birther lie that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, it takes little to persuade them that Harris would steal money to support illegal migrants.”

For my part, beyond Parker’s points, which are good ones, I think at least two things are true about Trump:  First, he is old and getting older by the minute, so senility may be setting in, or perhaps dementia; and, second, he must sit in a room somewhere with close allies and share perspectives about how to make stuff up in order to garner headlines, regardless of the facts.

In this connection, for some reason I happened to think of all the comedy writers for the Seinfeld TV show, now off the air, who regaled everyone with stories about how they sat around  in a room together and brainstormed stuff for Seinfeld and other actors to say.

Of course, what sycophants do for Trump is not comedy.  It is something far worse that threatens the America we know.

Consider this list of made-up stuff from Trump that were included in a column yesterday by Washington Post writer Dana Milbank the appeared under this headline:  TRUMP UPGRADES HIS CON TO CATEGORY 5.

• He absurdly alleged that after Hurricane Helene, the previous storm, Vice President Kamala Harris “didn’t send anything or anyone at all … as men, women and children drowned,” and he claimed that the Biden Administration confiscated relief supplies others tried to send.

• Trump falsely claimed that there are “over 13,000 illegal alien convicted murderers roaming free in our country … that were released from jail from all over the world,” particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Illegal immigrants, he said, “have equipment that our military doesn’t have” and are “taking over apartment buildings” in Colorado.

It’s all part of a “mass migrant invasion of murderers and child predators and gang members, terrorists, drug dealers and thugs.” He told the audience that if “this crazy, incompetent” Harris wins, “this same group is going to meet in Caracas, Venezuela, because it’ll be much safer than your particular state.”

• He proposed the ludicrous idea that public schools are changing children’s genders.  “Your child goes to school, and they take your child.  It was a ‘he’ and comes back as a ‘she.’  And they do this, and they do it, and often without parental consent.”

• He announced, falsely, that “I’m the only president in 78 years that didn’t start a war.”  Twenty-seven minutes later, he repeated himself: “I’m proud to be the first president in decades who started no new wars.”  Four minutes more elapsed, and he did it again: “I had no wars. I had no anything.  We had no terrorists.  We had no terror attacks.”  The fact is that he had all of the above.)

• He informed his supporters that he could be on a beach, with the “sun beaming down on this beautiful body in a bathing suit.”  And, of course, he boasted about his crowd size at his “beautiful” rallies:  “We never have an empty seat — never have.”
  
  

In summary, Milbank said, “This stuff was typical of Trump’s recent speeches, which have become darker, less coherent and almost entirely fictitious.  Peter Baker and several New York Times colleagues published a computer analysis showing that Trump’s rally speeches have gotten longer and show attributes that ‘some experts consider a sign of advancing age,’ can be an ‘indicator of cognitive change,’ and ‘could reflect what experts call disinhibition.’”

I am not sure what “disinhibition” means, but I suspect it is something along these lines:  Trump has no funnel for the truth.  He says whatever comes into his mind and, if he criticizes others in doing so (John McCain, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz), so much the better.

I also just looked up the word.  Here is the definition:

“A temporary loss of inhibition caused by an outside stimulus.”

As I said, that’s Trump.

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A footnote:  On “my” golf course the other day, players were told we were playing “preferred lies.”  I couldn’t believe it.  Were we going to be playing in a tournament held by Donald Trump.  No.  “Preferred lies” is a term meaning that, given weather and course conditions, you can “lift, clean, and replace” your golf ball before hitting it.  But, still, “preferred lies” sounds like Trump doesn’t it?